Take Shape Share (TSS), The European Repository has added Hot Lava Software as a Project Partner. This strategic partnership will allow TSS partners the opportunity to author, deliver, and track mobile learning via Hot Lava Software's Learning Mobile Author (LMA) and Mobile Delivery and Tracking System (MDTS).

The impact of this partnership will facilitate the mobile sharing of educational content among a European community of schools and colleges as well as improve, in general, the quality of learning and vocational training. The excitement of this partnership abounded during an interview with Drs. Albert de Vos, Project Manager for the Take Shape Share project.

"Hello Drs. de Vos. Who are the major players in this partnership and how will this venture ultimately affect Take Shape Share, The European Repository Project, its partners, Hot Lava Software and ultimately the EU?"

Drs. de Vos: The TSS project is an initiative of two major Community Colleges from the Netherlands in the province Zeeland; together with the Dutch Kennisnet (trl. Knowledge Net), a governmental organization and provider for international harvesting technology for educational content; FENC U.K., the company that delivers the repository infrastructure for sharing educational content between all partners; and, the European Commission that is funding The Leonardo da Vinci Life Long Learning Programme 2007-2011; together, with KlasCement a Belgium initiative that covers approximately 35,000 teachers who are sharing content, the Colegiul Economic Emanuil Gojdu in Rumania, and many other colleges that are a member of the TSS community. You can find more information about this collaborative partnership at http://www.tsseurope.eu/.

During May 2008, in London the first training will take place for teachers and staff members from four countries. They will learn how to use formal educational content according to the content chain. This is made possible by using metadata in conjunction with the harvester to search and locate content that lives in many repositories and databases-all based on knowledge sharing standardization.

For this project we are focusing on eLearning as well as mLearning materials. We expect, that Mobile Learning is becoming more and more important in the field of education, but there is still a lot of work to do, for example on Mobile SCORM. The Hot Lava MDTS fits exactly in this project because the MDTS has all the functionality to develop into the most important repository for using, re-using, storing, searching, and finding mobile content on an international scale.

"What impact will the addition of Hot Lava Software's Learning Mobile Author (LMA) and Mobile Delivery and Tracking System (MDTS) have upon TSS and the EU educational community?"

Drs. de Vos: If we manage to integrate Mobile Learning into the learning environments of educational organizations and companies through the harvesting system and we can position the MDTS as an international repository for mobile content, we will make a huge leap towards the realization of collaborative learning. The LMA makes it possible to create content on demand for anytime anyplace learning.  

"What are the main objectives of the TSS European Repository Project and how will this partnership with Hot Lava Software affect the TSS objectives?"

Drs. de Vos: The primary objective is sharing knowledge on an international scale that is easily accessible for students, teachers, company trainers, business employees, managers, etc. In the project we are looking for easy to use tools for content development, such as the LMA, for mLearning, but also tools like Wimba Create for eLearning and others with the restriction, that those tools are able to work with standardization protocols like XML-, IMS- and SCORM- compatibility.     

"How will this partnership affect other EU education and training programs such as The Leonardo da Vinci Programme?"

Drs. de Vos: The Dutch program started in 2005, based on 16 years experience of sharing knowledge between 250 colleges in the UK. It was continued in 2006 and 2007, with funding from the Dutch Kennisnet, and continued support is planned from Europe that will extend The Leonardo da Vinci Programme through 2011. The TSS project will be evaluated at the end of 2008, with knowledge dissemination as one of the key issues for the European Commission. So, as the project manager I have to travel a lot in Europe, for instance, the EdReNe conference in Slovenia (http://www.edrene.org/). I also travel within the U.S. For example, I attended the Nashville IT conference in November 2007 as well as the Society for Applied Learning Technology (SALT) conference in Washington, D.C. I target these important conferences so that I can learn about the application of new and cutting edge technologies in education, such as Hot Lava Software.

In the TSS project we integrate this new technology and share this knowledge with our partners. That's the reason that Hot Lava Software came into the picture as the leading company for mLearning solutions, as well as Hot Lava's intense focus on innovation and their drive to be the best in their field of education and mLearning technology. 

"Now that the TSS has decided to go mobile with Hot Lava Software what type of activities, projects and programs can we expect to see in the near future?"

Drs. de Vos: First of all, we have to invest a lot of effort in making people aware of the possibilities of Mobile Learning. In the Netherlands, the first projects initiated by the government have begun to investigate the possibilities for mLearning within Universities and Higher Education. In the UK, there are already huge conferences organized for Mobile Learning. In Germany, Mobile Learning is in its infancy. One of our main goals is to prepare an infrastructure in Europe for producing mobile content with all the possibilities users and developers need. People ask me many times: why Europe? The answer is very simple-Anytime, Anyplace Learning is an international activity of people all over the world and it is in my opinion a good idea to connect people with the purpose of making formal educational content (that is, content related to curriculum development) for eLearning and mLearning available for all learners. For more information please visit: http://www.tsseurope.eu/.